One thing that we did this expansion is make Power Auras a required mod for our progression raiding team. One of the reasons that we did this was because, as a team, we have historically struggled with situational awareness in our raids and we decided that we wanted to improve this. Now, Power Auras will not fix all problems – and people who are prone to stand in the bad will still generally stand in the bad, but this has helped a lot of folks learn encounters quicker and become more focused on key aspects of an encounter that could potentially lead into a wipe.

Now, please note that folks will absolutely still need to know what is going on around them, and Power Auras cannot play a person’s character for them. But they can help quite a bit, especially when learning a new encounter. In fact, we sometimes would stop a few minutes during learning phases to create an aura that we think would be helpful going forward.

For us integrating Power Auras into our raid team has been highly beneficial. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from our raiders on how much it has helped them on Boss Encounters and with learning new mechanics. And outside of that, we have also now have a lot of our raiders looking at what else Power Auras can provide them and creating and sharing their own auras amongst their classmates to help boost performance, which I think is fantastic.

Now, before I share the Auras that I created for our boss encounters, I want to talk about them for just a moment. First and foremost – you will see that many of them look identical. This is because we wanted the warnings to be simple and now overly complicated. We wanted them to be OH GOD THE BAD! And we wanted to brain to process the information quickly. Where the auras can be intuitive, I tried to make them as such. I think simplicity is important when creating Boss Auras because there is already a lot going on in encounters that your brain needs to process, without added another level of complication.

Additionally, all of my auras have auditory queues. This is because even with an OMG HUGE RED SKULL in your face, sometimes you just miss it. But it’s a little harder to miss a cackle or SHING! coming out of your computer. I find that auditory queues help a lot of people.

You may find other things that you’d like to add auras for on different boss encounters – this is just the list of auras that we’ve found beneficial to date.

Now – let’s take a look at what Auras we’ve put together!

Bastion of Twilight Auras

Halfus Wyrmbreaker – We have no auras for anything in this encounter as on Normal Mode we haven’t really found anything aura worthy. This may change on heroic.

Valiona and Theralion –

Blackout – this aura pops up on you when you are the target of Blackout. Sure, EVERYONE should be moving into melee range to split the damage for this already, but this is just a little extra reminder for those targeted to haul tail in, as they are the most important person to be in melee range.

Blackwing Descent

Magmaw – We haven’t created any auras for Magmaw as yet. We’ve tested a few to see if we can better evaluate when he’s casting pillar of flame, but haven’t been successful. We’ve also thought about adding one for when you are infected with a parasite, but haven’t found it necessary.

Omnitron Defense System

Fixate – This will tell you when you are the target of a slime when Toxitron is active to let you know that you need to run away and kite your slime.

Arcane Annihilator – For this aura to work, you must have Arcanotron as your target or focus target. This will let you know when Arcanotron is casting his Arcane Annihilator ability and it needs to be interrupted. Obviously, you only need this aura if you have the ability to silence.

Power Conversion – For this aura to work, you must have Arcanotron as your target or focus target. This aura will pop up when Arcanotron gets his Power Conversion buff to let you know that it needs to be purged, dispelled or spell stolen. Obviously you only need this aura if you can do one of those things.

Maloriak – At this time we’ve not found anything in this encounter that we feel needs a Power Aura.

Chimearon – At this time we’ve not found anything that needs a power aura. We’ve tried to create one to work when Chimearon is feuding to let everyone know to group up – but without success. If you create one to tell you when you do not have the bile-o-tron buff, it’s up all the time outside of that encounter. And it doesn’t seem to recognize Chimearon as casting feud. We will probably still play around with this to see if we can get one to work.

Atramedes

Sonic Breath – For this aura to work you must have the boss targeted or set as your focus. It should tell you when you are the target of Atramedes Sonic Breath. Now, I will say that this aura seems a touch buggy. Sometimes it works as intended – and other times it seems to only tell you if you get hit/are in Atramedes’ sonic flame breath. As such – please use with care!

Roaring Flame Breath – I did create an aura for this, but it doesn’t seem to work, and the Sonic Breath aura seemingly covers both. As such, I’m not going to list the aura – because I think it’s non-functional.

Nefarian – I have only spent one night with Nefarian. However, in that one night I haven’t seen anything that requires a Power Aura setting. The only thing that perhaps might be worthwhile is an interrupts on the Blast Nova for the adds – but I think it would just be repetitive as it’s a primary focus for everyone already. I have also toyed with making a roots timer one for myself for better monitoring the roots on my add – however this is moot for 25 man raiding, and only pertinent to 10s. If I decide to draft one up, I’ll post it🙂

Throne of the Four Winds

Conclave of Wind

Wind Blast – This is an Aura for those assigned to Rohash’s platform. You must have Rohash as your focus target for this to work. What this does is gives you a warning when Rohash is casting Wind Blast so that you can make sure you are in a safe spot. We’ve had a number of folks tell us that this aura has saved their bacon several times.

Lightning Rod – Please note that this is the exact same aura as the one from Ascendant Council. The debuffs are identical and you only need to import this aura once. If you’ve imported it from the above for Ascendant Council, you do not need to import it again. I will repeat the aura here for those who are looking at Al’Akir before Council.

As we push though to hard modes or come across other things we think that Auras would be useful for we will continue to add more. So far, these are the auras that we’ve used. The nice thing is that at any given time, we can add a new one on the fly for a mechanic that we think it would be important to have the extra reminder for – and within minutes our entire raid will have the reminder. It’s worked out very well for us, and I can’t promote it enough or recommend it enough for your raid teams!

If you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know!

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If you intend to use anything on this website, please have the courtesy to attribute what you share, and offer links back to this site. If you are unsure if you can use the content found here, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. ~Beru